Maxed out

The warming feeling of others’ misfortune

There’s something inherently uneasy about the
relationship between Canadians and summer. For starters, summer seems to be an
all or nothing proposition in the Great White North. You either get it or you
don’t. Getting it, as it turns out, is almost as much a mental exercise as a
physical reaction.

Back in the old country — Toronto and Montreal
— they’re getting it. Of course, now that they’ve got it, many of them don’t
want it. Those so equipped are scurrying back inside where the air is
conditioned, filtered, cooled and capable of being breathed without first
cutting it with a knife and swallowing it off a fork.

Those who don’t have air conditioning and
those who can’t or won’t pay $20 to see a tepid movie based on an insipid
television show from their childhood are getting it too. If they’ve learned the
hard way, or are just cautious Canadians, they’re getting it through a thick
application of Crazy Canuck SPF 54-40 that adds a three-dimensional sheen to
their fluorescent white skin. Unlike their wussy brethren, they consider the
thick, torpid air nutritional and are eating their fill at local beaches,
restaurants, patios and stuck in traffic while their life savings are exhausted
through their tailpipes.

Summer’s here and the time is right for
burnin’ in the streets.

On the left coast, summer seems once again to
be a no-show. It was 5º when I woke up this morning and after several hours
shivering in front of a computer screen I was trying to warm my hands on,
checking every few minutes to make certain it was still the second week of June
and not the second week of October, I finally snapped, crept downstairs and
sighing heavily in defeat, relit the furnace. It was either that or watch
mildew grow on the inside walls as I shivered my way to a slow death.

I’m still wearing pretty much the same clothes
I skied in all winter.

This perpetual weather tease — too cold, too
hot, neither extreme as rewarding as we hoped it would be when we were mired in
its opposite — gives rise to a peculiar kind of Canadian
schadenfreude
. As Canadians, we’re far too polite and collective to take real
pleasure in the misfortune of others. We feel everybody’s pain; their concerns
are our concerns. But we can, under extreme stress, particularly a virulent
bout of Canadian Weather Stress, allow ourselves to be mildly amused at the
perceived misfortunes of others, especially others with whom we tend not to be
particularly empathetic. And if we can couple this uncharacteristic amused
feeling with a healthy dose of National Identity, which is to say something
that makes us feel both different and morally superior to our southern
neighbours, well, all the better.